Praise for

MILLION DOLLAR DILEMMA

“Baer’s reputation—bolstered by the popular novel The Whitney Chronicles—means that this new novel is likely to sell briskly, especially since the eponymous Whitney makes an appearance among its cast of supporting characters.”

—Publishers Weekly on Million Dollar Dilemma

“Million Dollar Dilemma is a million-dollar treasure you must read! And give a wonderful gift to a friend.”

—Armchair Interviews

“Million Dollar Dilemma is a fabulously rockin’ inspirational romance. Fans of inspirational, chick-lit and contemporary romance will enjoy this book.”

—CataRomance Reviews

“For an enjoyable, inspirational, chick-lit reading experience, be sure to check out Million Dollar Dilemma.”

—romancejunkies.com

“Million Dollar Dilemma is sophisticated in structure and story, but sweet and accessible.”

—NBC10.com

Million Dollar Dilemma
Judy Baer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For my mother and in remembrance of my father, who both read to me constantly when I was a child. I learned the wonder and joy of books early. Thank you. I love you!

A man who works hard sleeps in peace. It is not important if he has little or much to eat. But a rich person worries about his wealth. He cannot sleep.

—Ecclesiastes 5:12

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

CHAPTER 1

Cassia, I’m collecting again. Want to chip in five bucks? If so, leave it in the envelope in my desk. Hope it’s a lucky weekend. See you Monday! Stella

Who is having a baby this time?

Sometimes I wonder why I work for a living. Is it to support myself or the office kitty every time someone in customer service or any other department has a baby…or a wedding…a funeral…a promotion…or a zit?

We are the most fertile, engage-able, promote-able and magnanimous division of Parker Bennett Manufacturing and buy more gifts and flowers than the rest of shipping and receiving, human resources and accounting offices put together.

It doesn’t hurt that Stella Olson prefers shopping online as an office-related activity to doing her actual work as receptionist and secretary. Of course, I enjoy being part of a group so generous and thoughtful. I like giving things away. Proverbs 11:24 and all.

Some people give much, but get back even more. But others don’t give what they should and they end up poor.

My Sunday-school teacher—who also happened to be my mother—made a big deal out of that. She talked a lot about how giving freely could lead to good things and being stingy and hoarding things wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Maybe she was just trying to get my sister and me to share toys, but the lesson went far deeper in me.

At first I dumped all my pennies into the collection plate as insurance that nothing terrible would happen to me, but as I got older I realized that I hadn’t purchased any heavenly health insurance after all.

I’m a P.K., a preacher’s kid—or if I want to get fancy, a T.O., a theologian’s offspring. Money never meant much to us. We always had good food to eat, a nice parsonage to live in and anything else we seemed to need. Now Dad is happy as a clam serving a three-point parish in Wyoming, sometimes eating three potluck dinners in a single day and turning a deaf ear to my mother’s lectures on the dangers of high blood pressure. He’s been known to have coffee and homemade cookies as many as seven times in a row when he’s visiting his parishioners and, because he looks so cuddly with those extra chins, they keep on feeding him. He’s oblivious to all but his flock and his faith and is often difficult to engage in conversations about anything other than baptism, church council, salvation or the Sunday-school board of education. Mom, fortunately, loves being Sunday school superintendent, leading Bible study and directing Christmas pageants. They’re a little distant at times, but that’s probably natural. They spent a lot of time in the mission field while I was growing up, and when they were gone, my sister and I lived with our grandparents.

I blame my grandfather, Benjamin Carr, for my proclivity to donate money to every good cause. I can still envision him—his perfectly groomed white hair, fastidiously trimmed mustache and penetrating gray eyes that pierced right to my soul. I can also hear his rumbling, sonorous voice quoting Luke 6:38. “Whatever measure you use in giving—large or small—it will be used to measure what is given back to you.” He led by example—to my grandmother’s dismay when she needed grocery money and found her cookie jar empty. But as she reminded us time and time again, God always provides.

I’ve missed my grandfather every day since he passed 10 weeks ago. Grandma assures me that with time, the pain will lessen. I’m still waiting.

Gramps was a big fan of the Bible first, and of Winston Churchill second. Spiritual, brilliant and with a keen interest in the history of Great Britain, Gramps spent the last fifty years of his life in Simms, South Dakota, a speck-in-the-road town that hadn’t substantially changed since the day he and his nineteen-year-old bride arrived, fresh faced and eager, to build a new church.

Gramps believed that Christians are givers—of time, talents, compassion and money. When anyone remarked on his proclivity for keeping so little for himself that he could barely make ends meet, he responded with a quote from Winston Churchill. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Even those doubting Thomases who took issue with the Bible were usually willing to respect old Winston.

I sighed and turned to stare at Stella’s desk.

I’m new to this office and to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I need all the friends I can get. Besides, I take pleasure in the celebrations as much as anyone. I love a good party.

I dug deep to find five one-dollar bills in the bottom of my worn faux leather purse and opened the desk drawer. I need a new purse, but right now I don’t have anything to put into it—or to pay for it with, either. What’s more, Grandpa Ben praised frugality so much that I actually get more joy out of not spending money. Weird, I know—a twenty-eight-year-old woman who doesn’t like to shop.

I peered inside the desk drawer. She’s meticulous, that Stella—I have to give her that. Every nail-polish bottle is arranged in order, descending from the dark rum-brown to the pale pink haze. Her pens, one of every color except black, which she says is depressing, are also tidily organized. She has lipstick, breath spray, mascara, blush and foundation stored where everyone else keeps their sticky pads and paper clips.

I suppose that’s what happens when you are a beautiful Scandinavian with hair the color of lemon juice, flawless porcelain skin, blue-violet eyes that change from the color of a peaceful sea to the angry violet of a nasty bruise in a nanosecond. Stella wants to be a model or an actress, but until she hits the big time she also wants to make a living—hence her receptionist position at PB Manufacturing. She’s nearly six feet tall and has a presence that terrifies most men. She says this is a great filter—only the most fearless dare approach her.

Stella also has a private-investigator friend who is always giving her advice—or making her more mistrustful, depending how one looks at it. A woman like Stella, who can have any man she wants, needs a screening system of some sort, I suppose. She’s not paranoid like another of our coworkers, but her philosophy is that all men are guilty until proven innocent.

There, right up front where no one could miss it, was her collection envelope with “Fun Money” printed on the flap. More fun when you’re on the receiving end of it, I imagine. I stared into my now-empty purse.

“Sorry, Winslow, you’ll have to wait one more week for your pedicure.” I glanced at the framed photo on my desk of my enormous, taffy-brown golden retriever/Old English sheepdog as I spent the money I’d been saving for his trip to the grooming parlor. I named him after Winslow Homer, the painter who first used watercolors to paint significant art. Although Homer primarily painted the sea, one canvas, The Rustics, always reminds me of Simms, the place I still call home. Despite his pink, lolling tongue and patient, benevolent expression, Winslow won’t be happy about waiting. He’s almost as vain as Stella, and loves coming home smelling like doggy perfume and having a new kerchief around his massive neck. My ninety-day probation period can’t be over soon enough for me. That’s when I get a raise that will bring me out of poverty level.

Ever since I moved to the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, I’ve been reeling from sticker shock. In Simms I could buy a great little house with a garden and double-car garage for a third of what I’m paying here for a diminutive, overcrowded second-floor apartment in a sixty-year-old building with as many creaks and groans as the retired ranchers who populate Fannie’s Coffee Shop on Saturday mornings.

As I slipped my five dollars into the envelope and closed the drawer, the phone rang. For me, terminally curious, ignoring it is never an option.

“Parker Bennett Manufacturing. This is Cassia. May I help you?”

“Can you talk?” The voice on the other end of the line was rich, throaty and full-bodied, like French roasted coffee laced with heavy cream.

“It’s five o’clock on Friday afternoon, Jane. You don’t have to whisper. The exodus from here started at three.”

I imagined my perpetually pleasant, five-foot-one-inch sister leaning conspiratorially into the phone, her bobbed hair swinging over her round cheeks and her brown eyes sparkling. I’m the “redheaded stepchild” of my family—everyone else has plank-straight hair that’s a lovely traditional shade of brown, and eyes to match. I, on the other hand, look as if I was sired by Henry VIII of England and birthed by Pippi Long-stocking, with my riot of russet curls and eyes the color of, according to my dad, warm caramel.

Jane is envious of my porcelain skin and oval face. I figure the accursed ginger-colored freckles across the bridge of my nose make us even in the skin department. We both, however, have smiles with teeth straight and even as a mile’s worth of fence posts across the South Dakota prairie.

“I didn’t want your boss to think you took personal calls during working hours. Proverbs 15:3, you know.”

The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. Jane and I had listened so often to our grandfather’s sermons and pithy homilies that as kids we’d started referring to our own life experiences by book, chapter and verse. Just the mention of Proverbs 12:24 can make me shorten my coffee break and get back to work.

Hard workers will become leaders. But those who are lazy will be slaves.

“Are you taking Grandma home to Simms this weekend, Cassia? I forgot a sweater there on my last trip. I’d like you to pick it up if you go.”

No way. I’d just escaped from Simms, and had no immediate desire to go back. “There’s nothing to do there except to check the basement for mice and kick the furnace. Grandma Mattie isn’t interested in the long trip, and the neighbors are looking after things. I thought we’d wait until Mom and Dad come for a visit.”

Their vacation is months from now.

“What about Ken? Don’t you want to see him?”

Talking to my sister on the phone is very frustrating. I prefer to do it in person so she can see me glaring menacingly at her. Jane’s a busybody, pure and simple. “I’ve said it a dozen times. I’m not seeing Ken anymore.”

“Does he know that?”

“I’ve told him often enough. Of course, I’ve told you a number of times, too, and you keep bringing up the subject.”

“Touchy, touchy. Did I hit a nerve?”

“I only have one nerve left and you’re on it. You know perfectly well that Ken and I were just…convenient. Two single people in a small town. We were invited to the same parties so often that someone decided we were a couple, that’s all.” Unfortunately no one in Simms believed that we were only friends, not even Ken.

“Maybe that’s true for you, but I think Ken has a slightly different perspective.”

“It doesn’t matter. Ken and I are done.”

“Just checking,” Jane said infuriatingly. “I’m glad to hear you’re hanging tough with him. He’d have already marched you down the aisle if he had his way.”

“I know. The story of my life. I never find my Mr. Right, but I have an entire army of Mr. Slightly Wrongs beating on my door. Ken is waiting for me to get lonely in the big city, realize what a ‘good thing’ I’ve got in him and come running back to Simms to marry him.”

“And pigs will fly!” Jane knows full well my attitude about the subject, but feels it’s her sisterly duty to check my emotional temperature once in a while. She never realizes how many times she’s the one responsible for raising it into the danger zone.

“I suppose it wasn’t quite that bad…”

“Hah! Don’t try to pretend with me, Cassia. You only went to Simms because Gramps needed a temporary church secretary. Three months, tops, he told you. If you’d known you’d have to put your master’s degree on hold and quit your job at the preschool to help Grandma care for him for eighteen months, you might not have been quite so willing to help out.”

“No one knew how ill he was, Jane, least of all Gramps. None of us had any idea that Grandma Mattie and I would be taking care of him until he died.”

“Of course not, but I’ll bet if Ken offered you a million dollars, a mansion overlooking the James River and a fleet of servants, you wouldn’t go back now.”

Actually, he had offered me that. I’d just never mentioned it to Jane because I didn’t take him up on his proposal.

“Ben and Mattie needed me, that’s all that’s important. Besides, I’m not much interested in money. You know that. All Winslow and I need is food and shelter.” I glanced at Stella’s desk. And enough money to buy gifts for my coworkers.

“Oh, Cassia. You’d be contented in a tree house if you thought that was what God wanted for you. You’re the least materialistic human being on the planet.”

I propped the phone beneath my chin and removed the clip from my hair. I felt it cascade down my back in ringlets like cooped-up children let out for recess, and ran my fingers through my curls with relief.

“No one in our grandfather’s house dared to be acquisitive. Jane, you and I were the only two children in school who were afraid of our own allowance.”

“Speak for yourself. I, at least, could suppress my guilt and spend mine, guilty as it made me feel. You’d put yours in the offering plate on Sunday morning. I thought you were nuts.”

“Psalms 37:16.”

It is better to be godly and have little than to be evil and possess much.

“Having money doesn’t make you evil, silly.”

“Gramps did warn us a time or two about the dangers of storing up one’s treasures on earth, didn’t he?”

“I doubt he was thinking of his two scrawny, scabby-kneed granddaughters.”

“All I know is that I don’t want too much cash. It’s more responsibility than I care to have. Besides, I don’t need much.”

I glanced at my watch. “Listen, I have to go. Winslow is probably crossing his legs and dancing by the front door by now. Talk later?”

Silly question. Jane is as chatty as I can be reserved. It’s a wonder that I still have ears—you’d think she would have talked them off by now.

“Okay. Hug Grandma Mattie for me when you see her. Oh, by the way, have you met your neighbors yet?”

“Slowly. Listen, I have to go. Bye.”

Hanging up on Jane made me feel both guilty and relieved. I don’t want to admit that I haven’t met a single neighbor in the building she’d assured me was probably full of people my age and very friendly. According to Jane, apartment living would be a veritable mine of opportunities to expand my social life. Of course, the last time she lived in an apartment, she was in college.

As far as I’ve gathered from the landlord, most of the residents are elderly or hold night jobs. The apartment below mine, supposedly occupied by someone under sixty, is closed up tight.

The dull mechanical drone of the dial tone hummed in my ear.

Social life. What a novel concept. I’ll have to go right out and get myself one. Of course, at this point, I have to admit, any old life would do—they all have to be more exciting than mine.

CHAPTER 2

Grocery stores are the most amazing things, like Disneyland for the hungry and fresh-food deprived. In Simms an apple, banana or orange is exotic, but here…

I felt my control slipping in the fresh produce section and didn’t pull myself together until dairy loomed ahead. Even there I felt a tingle over the choices—milk for the lactose intolerant, for the dairy intolerant…next there’d be milk for the simply intolerant.

“Are you a vegan?” the clerk asked, eyeing my kiwi, Asian pears, jicama, pomelos, tangelos, mangoes, plantains, bread fruit and pomegranates.

“No, I’m Swedish. People get us mixed up with the Norwegians all the time.”

Jane says I have a twisted sense of humor. Maybe she’s right.

I’m also a flower lover, but when one of the fronds of greenery from the mish mash of flowers I purchased tickled my nose, I realized that a dreaded carnation was stowed away in a perfectly nice bunch of tulips, daisies and one strangely exotic bird-of-paradise I couldn’t resist.

I don’t like carnations. They remind me of the leftover funeral flowers my frugal grandfather had me rearrange for church on Sunday mornings. No matter how artfully I did it or how many funereal bows I discarded, everyone in the congregation knew exactly where they’d come from.

As I neared my Nicollet Avenue apartment I saw that a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk near the front door of my building to watch a tall, dark-haired man carry suitcases and crates into the vestibule. Several bystanders were gathered around a single case, eyeing it with looks of either trepidation or serious indigestion.

Curious, I picked up my pace, telling myself that I needed to get the flowers into water and walk Winslow before he had an accident on the ugly patch of brown shag rug in the foyer that really should have been destroyed decades ago.

“Excuse me, coming through…excuse me, please, I live here. If you don’t mind…” I wormed my way through the crowd of spectators apologizing for batting gawkers with my bouquet and obscenely heavy bag of lumpy fruit. I was almost to the door when a growl made the hair rise on the back of my neck.

The sound smoldered out of the crate and circled the crowd like a ring of smoke. Everyone took a single step backward in unison, as though the fiend inside the cage were about to escape. Low and guttural, it was an undomesticated, dangerously feral sound. And too untamed to be coming from an enclosure that was about to be carried into my apartment building! I’ve always wondered what could make one’s blood run cold. Well, that sound wrapped a definite chill around my arteries.

Instead of following my impulse to run, I pushed forward, my maternal instincts pumping. “Please, I have to get through!” Winslow, my baby, was inside that building.

Feisty as only a redhead can be, I stepped into the center of the circle of people and came toe-to-toe with the dark-haired man, who was wearing a battered leather jacket, perfectly pressed jeans and chamois shirt so soft and pale it looked like fresh butter. Like a pricked balloon, my temper leaked away and jelly settled in my knees. From Attila the Hun to Gumby, just like that.

“Oh, hello,” I said stupidly, all rational thought gone. The man was Indiana Jones incarnate. Younger, of course, and without that charming little cut in his chin, but a heartthrob-with-a-death-wish-type adventurer, nonetheless. And he did have a scar over his left eyebrow that was mesmerizing in its own way.

He glanced up as if a mosquito had landed on his cheek, and I was afraid he was going to brush me away. Instead, his faintly stubbled jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed appraisingly.

As he looked me over from head to toe I felt a weird internal meltdown. This had to be the most beautiful —and intimidating—man I’d ever seen. It was the eyes, I thought. Dark and searing, sorrowful and soul-searching all at once, they snagged on mine for the briefest moment as he bent to pick up the large gray travel crate punctured liberally with airholes.

Then, through the fissures came a bloodcurdling, unearthly yowl that had the same effect on me as chewing aluminum foil on metal-filled molars.

“What is that?” I started as the crate quivered and shook. It appeared an eruption was imminent.

“‘That’ is my cat.”

Crazed fiend from the bowels of the earth, you mean.

“Now excuse me, but he’s anxious to be home. If you’ll—” a guttural squall and a brown-and-black paw punching its way through an airhole in the crate punctuated his words “—let me by…” An airborne catnip mouse came shooting out of one of the larger holes in the crate and, without considering what I was doing, I picked it up.

This is his home? That…thing…actually lives here? My shoulders sagged in dismay.

Just then Winslow started woofing happily. I could see the top of his moplike head framed in the window of my apartment. Gentle, mild mannered, loving and easily intimidated, Winslow had never met a cat he didn’t like. I had a hunch that was about to change dramatically.

“Oh, rats,” I muttered, but quickly changed my mind. There’d be no rats within a ten-block radius once this…thing…was on the prowl.

I’ve never known what musical charm or spell it was that made both rats and children follow the Pied Piper to their doom in the poem by Robert Browning, but whatever that piper guy had, this man possessed in spades. Before my head switched into thinking gear, my feet followed him into the building and to the doorway of his apartment. And I did have his catnip mouse.

He was oblivious to me. The travel crate tipped, swayed and shuddered as its inhabitant rocketed from one end to the other, howling discontent and elevating his owner’s already apparent annoyance.

Mesmerized, I stepped into the apartment, unaware of anything but what was inside that crate. I imagined catastrophe—the smells, the sounds, the claws, the danger, the inevitable showdown and the blood, most of which, I quickly realized, would be Winslow’s. He wouldn’t last a minute if he came face-to-face with the Tasmanian devil hunkered evilly in the corner of his crate.

I’d meant to ease myself noiselessly out of the room after dropping the mouse on a nearby table, but was captivated by the space around me, which spoke volumes—literally—about its owner. Books enveloped the room floor to ceiling like wallpaper. In the corners piles of hardbacks teetered like architecture in Pisa. The reading material was eclectic—history, autobiographies, nature and what appeared to be college textbooks.

But the books were a mere background for the rest of the room’s decor. Framed photos in color and black and white leaned in stacks against the legs of furniture, and magazines littered the floor like carpet samples. A film of dust coated the armrests of his oxblood leather couch and a petrified burger and fries spread out on the coffee table made it appear he’d fled the apartment as if it were on fire.

It was all very exotic to me, who’d spent the past eighteen months in Simms, where no one can disappear for more than an hour without being missed, no one’s business is private and all is fair game for coffee-klatch discussion. Of course, this guy was nothing like the men I’d grown accustomed to in Simms. The most mysterious thing about most of them was when they’d last changed their socks and flossed their teeth.

“You’ve lived in this building for a while, haven’t you?”

He spun around on his heel, scowling. “Wha…” He hadn’t even noticed that I’d followed him to the apartment.

“Welcome home,” I blurted, trying to recover some sense of propriety, and thrust into his face the bundle of flowers I was carrying. The tulips, daisies, daffodils, roses, the offending carnation and wildly out of place bird-of-paradise erupted out of the green florist paper and into his arms.

“They were so pretty that I bought some of each. You can’t buy flowers in the market where I come from. It’s only on a rare day that you can buy an eggplant….”

Shut up, Cassia.

“Then you should keep the flowers.” He gently pushed at my outstretched hand as his glower morphed into something softer—a grimace, perhaps. Not much of an improvement, but nothing could dim his good looks.

“I don’t own a vase to put them in. They won’t look like much in a mayonnaise jar. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I thrust the bouquet back at him. I’m nothing if not persistent. Once I embarrass myself, I don’t stop until I’ve achieved it fully.

He obviously didn’t know what to make of my gesture. Finally he raked his dark hair into spikes with his fingers and stared intently at me, as if seeing me for the very first time.

When he looked straight at me, that jellyfish feeling came back into my legs, and I wondered if I’d fall. Perhaps the fruit was weighing me down. I opened my hand, and the sack dropped to the floor. The cage inhabitant howled loudly, but the gorgeous Mr. Mystery Man didn’t even flinch.

His unsettling eyes were the color of espresso, and the look he gave me was as disquieting as if he’d pumped pure caffeine into my nervous system. But if he meant to scare me off, he’d met his match. I’d come too far into my folly to turn back without attempting to save face. Besides, I’d traveled in far more hostile environs than these. Anyone who has spent months calling on parishioners who haven’t darkened the door of a church since Nixon was president would understand. If my neighbor meant to intimidate me, he’d have to try harder than this.

“No problem.” I looked around, trying to think of something friendly to say before I made my departure on my own terms. The walls of books and heavy leather furniture were masculine and inviting. Ernest Hemingway would have felt right at home.

“It’s very cozy in here. Much more comfy than my place. Lots larger, too. I haven’t seen you before. You must travel a lot.”

My mouth overfloweth. James 1:26, Cassia, James 1:26!

If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.

“Let’s just say I have enough frequent flyer miles to take free vacations until I’m a hundred and five.” He seemed amused. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to let Pepto out of his cage, and it might be a good idea if he didn’t see any strangers until he’s reacquainted with the apartment.”

“Pepto?”

He actually smiled. “After the Pepto-Bismol case in which I found him hiding. He was the king of unwanted strays, fighting, romancing the ladies and living off food from the garbage can outside my bedroom window. I brought him in and fed him in order to shut him up so I could get a decent night’s sleep. Somehow, in the process he adopted me.”

I had one of those Awwww… moments. “How sweet!”

He eyed me as if I were as loony as Pepto. “Right. Sweet. A regular Lion King. I’m going to let him out now, so you might want to step behind a piece of furniture just in case. Or, safer yet, close the front door behind you.”

At first I thought he was kidding—about the danger, at least. I knew he was dead serious about my stepping out the door. But before I could get to the entrance of the apartment, he lifted the pin on the travel crate and Pepto was rereleased onto the world.

A shriek that could have frozen molten lava and a brown-and-black blur of fur, teeth and claws shot out of the carrier and ricocheted off several pieces of furniture and two walls. When a floor lamp landed on its side in a clatter, the cat howled as if he’d been disemboweled and plunged himself deep beneath the couch.

I instinctively hit the floor like a ton of bricks, covered my head with my arms and curled into a fetal position to avoid the thrashing animal. When I came up for air, Pepto’s owner was staring at me with alarm. He was as cool and nonchalant as if he risked having his eyes clawed out on a daily basis.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ll let you know for sure when my legs stop shaking.” I felt my knee buckle, the one I’d hit on the floor as I dropped. “But I wouldn’t mind sitting down for a moment, Mr.…”

“Adam. Adam Cavanaugh. Please, sit.” He gestured to an antique chair that looked something like a cat itself with animal-like jaws carved into the wooden armrests and paws with claws for feet. It was upholstered in something that looked disquietingly like fur.

But beggars can’t be choosers and I was beginning to feel a little queasy. If that thing even saw Winslow… Eyeing the base of the couch, half expecting to see a claw-studded fur ball soar from beneath, I dropped onto it. Dust flew into my nostrils. How long had these two been gone, anyway?

“Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself.” I pointed my finger to the ceiling over our heads.

Something warm and melty flickered in his eyes. “I suspected as much.” The room was quiet except for the juicy licking sounds of Pepto bathing under the couch.

His reticence triggered my inner blabbermouth, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to fill the silences with which he seemed so comfortable.

“I’m Cassia Carr. Most people haven’t heard the name Cassia. My mother told me it was Grandpa’s idea.”

Well, that was profound.

He, at least, was polite enough to acknowledge my chatter. “An interesting name.”

“Cassia means ‘spicy cinnamon.’ I suppose my red hair inspired him. I should actually consider myself lucky. Apparently I had an amazingly loud cry for a little thing, and my grandfather first suggested naming me Calliope. That means ‘beautiful voice.’”

That quirky little smile touched his lips again as I plowed on, making an even bigger fool of myself. “With Grandpa being a country preacher and all, I suppose I’m fortunate I didn’t end up as Arabelle.”

He looked at me questioningly, as if now that this thing on his couch had started to talk, he had no idea how to turn it off. Neither did I. At last, something we had in common.

“Arabelle?” Nonplussed, he folded into the faded tapestry wing chair across from me, definitely the finest example of the male species I’d ever studied, exuding comfort, rugged elegance and simplicity. A no-frills man who looked like a million bucks.

A million bucks. I’ve never really liked that term. A million bucks is a pile of ugly, lumpy money. There’s nothing ugly about this guy.

His eyes fixed on me and I inexplicably felt as though I were the most important person in the world to him, that he wanted—no, yearned—to hear every single thought in my head.

“Arabelle. ‘Calling to prayer,’” I yammered. “My grandfather did that a lot—call people to prayer, that is. My sister and I lived with him and my grandmother while my parents were overseas in the mission field.”

“And your sister’s name is…?”

“Jane.”

Much to my surprise, he burst out laughing. “Grandpa didn’t have many ideas the day she was born, I take it.”

“Apparently not.” I felt a rush of blood explode in my cheeks.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” I apologized. “I normally don’t follow people around trying to find out what’s in their luggage.” I eyed the crate. “When I saw that and heard the sounds coming out of it, the first thing I thought about was Winslow, my dog. He’s big but gentle, like a stuffed toy almost. Except, of course, for his appetite. His favorite thing in the world is eating. And me, of course. And—” I couldn’t help glancing at the base of the leather couch “—cats.”

Adam lifted one eyebrow dubiously.

“Do you think that’s going to be a problem?”

“Winslow,” he echoed, as if unprepared for this onslaught of information.

“He’s named after Winslow Homer, the painter, but I considered naming him Mozart,” I yammered. “As a puppy, he loved Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 20 in D Minor. As long as I played it, he was quiet. In fact—and I really hate admitting this to anyone because my sister already thinks I’m besotted about my dog—I leave classical CDs playing for him while I’m at work. Mostly Mozart…” My voice trailed away. “I don’t know much about music, but I do know my dog is crazy about it.”

CHAPTER 3

“Or just plain crazy,” Adam muttered as his new neighbor babbled her way to his front door.

Turning away from the sight, he opened the cupboard to see what he and Pepto would be having for supper. There were two cans of sardines, a can of tomato soup and some mixed fruit he’d purchased with the delusion that he might actually make something out of it. There was probably some of that frozen fake egg goop and bacon in the freezer if he had the energy to find it. Best of all, in the back of the cupboard, shoved behind a double stack of cheap napkins, was a can of the kitten food he’d fed Pepto when he’d first found him. The robust, barrel-bottomed cat now twining himself around Adam’s legs had then looked like a starving rat with bad fur and attitude.

“Well, guy, we’re going to eat well tonight. Quit kissing up to me, you mangy fur ball.”

Adam grinned slightly as he worked the can opener. Pepto had really done a number on his new neighbor. Maybe he and Pepto were more alike than he’d realized—both good at intimidating women and scaring them off.

He’d felt her caramel-colored eyes on his back as she’d shadowed him into the building. Her gaze had practically seared holes through the leather jacket that had withstood strafing, blistering heat, frigid snow, pellet shot, short knives with sharp blades and, once, even a branding iron. She was definitely a woman who could make a mark on a guy—if he’d let her. But Adam wasn’t in the mood to even think about a woman, let alone get entangled with one.

He was bone tired, gravel eyed, hungry and dirty. He’d missed three planes, four meals and two nights’ sleep to get home. He didn’t want to deal with either a psychotic cat or the big-eyed woman with a mass of astounding red hair who’d apparently rented the empty apartment upstairs while he was away on assignment. His nerves were open wounds, raw, exposed and agonizingly tender. He was exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally, and right now neither the banshee at his feet nor the dewy-eyed feminine apparition who lived upstairs was much to his liking. All he wanted was a bed to collapse into. But instead of indulging himself, he opened the curtains and unlocked the windows to flood light and air into the dusty gloom.

He rolled his shoulders to release the muscles in his neck, but they were so stiff and tight that he felt the movement halfway to his calves. Being a punching bag for the travel industry was not for wimps. Endless hours on the plane, more on the ground in airports without air-conditioning, dehydration and whatever faux food could be hermetically sealed and sold for exorbitant prices from carts in airports had taken its toll. Then Pepto, who’d taken a liking to his babysitters, Adam’s cousin Chase Andrews and his wife, Whitney, had thrown a fit at the idea of going back into his crate and had given Adam a full set of toenail scratches on the back of one hand.

And the new little neighborhood cheerleader had given him flowers. He didn’t bother to tell her that if he were to get flowers every time he did a touch-and-go in this apartment, the place would be a dead-bouquet graveyard. He eyed the strange conglomeration of flowers that was mostly daisies with a single carnation and a bird-of-paradise thrown in. It was odd, but he rather liked it.

He turned around and was astounded to see her still standing in his doorway. Adam observed her anxious expression, wringing hands and the way she stood like a penitent child. Not a child, exactly. The aquamarine knit top she wore skated smoothly across her curves and the body beneath the crisp white slacks was long legged and fit. All she wore for jewelry was a gold necklace from which hung a simple cross. Her fingers were bare of rings, but she wore a slender gold toe ring on her second toe that peeked tantalizingly from her sandal.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

She would excuse him, wouldn’t she? It alarmed Adam a little that she looked as though she’d settle in for the duration. She was eyeing his tattered leather luggage plastered with old decals, port-of-entry and customs stamps and held together with a sturdy leather belt, and comparing it to the pristine cowhide carrying case for his laptop computer.

“I don’t know what you do for a living,” she murmured, “but it must be very interesting.”

“Don’t mind the bullet hole. A minor accident. No one was hurt.”

“Hmm.” She bent to drag a dainty pink-tipped finger over a burn mark on the corner of the suitcase. It was a memento of a spirited argument around a campfire during which one of his companions had tried to throw both Adam and his luggage onto the pyre.

Mentally Adam renewed his vow to find another job. This one was just too hard on him.

Though he was tempted to encourage Cassia to mind her own business and get back to her apartment, it occurred to him that there was no casual inquisitiveness or recreational prying in her expression. She was genuinely interested. He could hardly fault her for asking questions, since he made a living doing the same thing. Her face was completely open and without guile, a quality so scarce he’d barely recognized it. Her loneliness and embarrassment were apparent. Adam prided himself on his ability to read people and their emotions. It was disconcerting to realize that, for this woman at least, he actually cared what she felt.

Touchy-feely he was not. Or hadn’t been…until recently. But despite the fleeting compassion he felt for Cassia, he was relieved when she finally backed through the doorway waving goodbye.

Man, oh, man, did he need a shower and a nap.

The little skeleton twitched as though it were still alive. It couldn’t be, of course. There was nothing left of the child but tissue-paper-thin skin stretched across an emaciated body. Its skull was too large for the wasted body and the eyelids, like bits of waxy paper, did not quite close, revealing slits of white fringed by sparse lashes.

Dazed and drunk with misery, Adam picked up the shovel and began to dig another grave. Surely he was hallucinating from heat and exertion. The eroded earth was hard and dry as chalk, over-grazed by cattle on this marginal land, leaving it unprotected and exposed to the elements.

He couldn’t go very deep with this one. Taking off his brimmed canvas hat, he wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand. He tasted the saltiness of his lips and felt the visibly shimmering heat embracing him. His water bottle was back in the tent and his tongue was growing thick and parched. He’d have to get this done soon and go back to rehydrate. There weren’t many good-sized rocks in this area either. Not enough to cover a grave. He’d used them all for the others. Perhaps there weren’t enough rocks and dirt in Burundi to cover all the dead bodies. Even though there’d been a tenuous peace in Africa’s Great Lakes Region since the end of the civil war, famine was just as efficient at eradicating life as war had been. Sadly, it took the infants and children first.

He did the best he could, scratching out a shallow hole in the hard earth before turning to pick up the tiny carcass he’d come to bury. He cradled the frail frame in his arms for just a moment. It was like holding a cluster of pencils—tiny sticks of arms and legs, limp and nearly weightless….

Adam heard himself scream as the fragile form moved in his arms. Eyes, large and dark as black holes in a distant universe, opened to stare at him.

“You’re dead! Dead!” Adam shouted. But the baby wasn’t dead, not quite. The eyes stared at him accusingly, as if he were the one responsible for its suffering.

At least he could wake himself up from these dreams, Adam thought, taking deep breaths. He was on the verge of hyperventilating, shivering and damp from head to toe with sweat and nerves, a sheen of perspiration glistening across his pectorals and the soft, dark furring of his chest. He worked his jaw and willed himself to relax. His pajama bottoms rode low on his hips, and he felt a rivulet of sweat pouring down his backbone to soak the elastic at his waist. As he stood at the kitchen sink slugging back glasses of ice water, he began to shiver. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn he had the shaking, chills, muscle aches and exhaustion of malaria. He would have traded the dreams that haunted him for malaria any day. From this side of sleep, a nap no longer seemed such a good idea.

Groping toward the shower, he stumbled over Pepto, who had stationed himself in the hall in front of the bedroom door. The cat who, abused as a kitten, could be provoked into a frenzy at the sight of anything closely resembling a human attack, didn’t even flinch. Even Pepto, the most self-absorbed creature ever born, sensed that Adam had reached his limit.

As Adam stood in the shower, welcoming the sharp pinpricks of water on his body, he wondered anew when…if…the dreams would ever stop.

CHAPTER 4

Kiwi is God’s way of cracking a joke.

I peeled another of the hairy little critters, sliced the bright green flesh dotted with its circle of black seeds and added it into my developing fruit salad, to be tossed in a concoction of cottage cheese, black persimmon pulp and honey. The recipe sounds pretty scary, but sometimes it’s good to live on the edge.

Cooking helps me ease the loneliness I’ve been feeling.

I went to church this morning, and came back reluctantly to my empty apartment. I’m “church shopping,” going in ever and ever bigger concentric circles in the area of my apartment. I’ve been praying that the Holy Spirit will give me a big “thumbs up” sign when I find my church home.

The phone rang. I checked caller ID to make sure it wasn’t Ken again. Sometimes I’m just not up to being loved by him.

“Hi, Grandma?” I took the phone into the living room and sprawled across the couch I’d borrowed from Jane. “What’s up?”

“That’s what I called to ask you, my dear.” Grandma Mattie’s voice was robust and cheerful. I couldn’t help but smile just hearing her.

“I went to the market yesterday.”

“My, my, now what?”

I suppose she has a right to be apprehensive. I’ve been going a little overboard at grocery and specialty stores. For me, unfortunately, everything from canned rattlesnake to sushi tastes like chicken.

“Black persimmons—‘chocolate pudding fruit’? How could I resist?”

“It would have taken a saint, I’m sure,” Grandma said tranquilly. “I’ve heard that grocery stores and Laundromats are wonderful places to meet men—so clean and wholesome. And men who shop and do laundry at night obviously aren’t frequenting nightclubs….”

Visions of men too ashamed to show their dirty underwear by light of day invaded my thoughts. Ewww. “Grandma, have you been talking to Jane?”

“Your sister thinks you’re lonely.”

“My sister thinks a lot of things. That doesn’t make them all true. She’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“That’s where her nose has always been,” Grandma Mattie agreed cheerfully. “Are you lonely?”

There’s no use beating around the bush with Mattie. “A little. The people at work are great, but they live all over the city and none near me. My apartment building is quieter than I’d expected. In fact, I didn’t meet any of my neighbors until today…and I managed to make a royal fool of myself, too.”

“Oh?” Mattie can pack volumes into a single “Oh?”

“I didn’t expect the Cities to be like Simms, where I can dial a wrong number and talk for half an hour to whoever answers, but I also didn’t realize how much I’ve missed my friends until I followed a man into his apartment today.”

There was a long, potent pause on the other end of the line. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“There’s nothing much to tell, really, but he has the most awful cat….” I unfurled for her my long, wretched story. To my surprise, instead of asking where I’d gone wrong in the common sense department, she changed the subject.

“Do you like your job?”

“It’s fine. I’m still learning.”

“You’ll find something in your field soon. You didn’t get a degree in child development to waste it now.”

“I need to finish my master’s and maybe even my doctorate in child psychology, Grandma. Right now I’m a well-educated unemployable.”

“You left school to help your grandfather and me and didn’t complain once about your sacrifice. The Fifth Commandment and all.”

Honor your father and your mother.

Grandma, too, was accustomed to talking in biblical shorthand.

I recalled the day my grandfather had had his first heart attack. That moment had changed my life. I had known for certain that I couldn’t let Mattie struggle alone, and once I realized Grandpa Ben was disappearing in inches, a little each day, it became crystal clear that my place was with my grandparents. I would only have felt remorse if I had decided my own life was “too important” to spare them the time and had missed the opportunity to share so many powerful weeks with Grandfather before he died.

“You and Ben have been like my own father and mother in so many ways. You were there for us when our parents were away, foot soldiers right there in the trenches with us.”

“I never considered raising you two a war, dear. Of course, there were a few skirmishes.”

I winced, hoping she wasn’t thinking of that time Jane and I were so determined to play with the same doll that we pulled it in half. Or that nasty incident with the scissors while we played beauty shop. Of course, that did work out in the long run. Jane still wears her hair in a bob.

I heard a knock and a voice in the background on Mattie’s end of the line. Then she said, “Can I call you back, dear? I’ve got company.”

“Don’t worry about it, Gram. Call me when you aren’t busy.”

Because I certainly won’t be.

It should be the other way around. I should be telling my grandmother how to adjust, not vice versa. She has taken to city life like a duck to water. Mattie turns down invitations from Jane and me because her social life in the assisted living center is so busy. While Mattie is enjoying her social whirl, I already have all my photos in photo albums and my recipes typed nicely and filed in a box. I’m going to alphabetize the spices and the cleaning products next, then refold the bath towels in a new configuration I saw in Good Housekeeping. I’ve even started to iron.

The phone rang again. Twice in a day. A new record. I picked it up without checking the ID, only to hear “Are you ready to come home yet?”

The familiar, proprietary voice set my teeth on edge. “Hello, Ken. How are you?”

“Don’t play games with me, Cassia. I miss you and I know you miss me. You can be here in time for the spaghetti feed before the baseball game tomorrow if you pack tonight. What do you say?”

“I’m fine, thank you. How nice of you to call. Now, if you’ll just excuse me…”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry I jumped into it like that, but you are driving me crazy, darlin.’You don’t belong in Minneapolis. You belong in Simms with me.”

I could just see him, hair the color of ripe wheat buzzed into submission, that intentional three-day stubble of beard that so many men wear these days, pristine white T-shirt with tight sleeves stretching over refined biceps. I could imagine his even white teeth with a wad of gum lodged between the back molars and his practiced sneer, an expression he hoped looked just like Elvis’s. A fine specimen of a man he is, even if Ken thinks so himself.

“You don’t need me in Simms. The game will go on without me.”

“So will the Twin Cities.”

“We’ve discussed this a dozen times….”

“And you never get it quite right. I love you, Cassia. I want you here with me.”

“But I don’t love you. Not like that…”

“Sooner or later you’ll realize that love isn’t about hearing bells and being swept off your feet. Love is about the time you’ve put into the relationship, the history you share.”

But I want bells. I want to be swept off my feet. Besides, this romantic deductive reasoning comes from a man who considers venison, codfish and sauerkraut gourmet foods.

“Then you should love your pickup truck and your dog, Boosters, very much. I know how much time and history you all have together.”

“I can see this wasn’t the right time to call.”

Finally, a glimmer of intuition on his part. I’d practically hit him over the head to make him understand that I wasn’t going to fall in love with him, but Ken refused to take no for an answer. His persistence had made him an unlikely success in the construction world, and the business he based in Simms had flourished across the state. Apparently when something worked once, Ken figured it would work again.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he says, not realizing that there’d really never been anything between us to fix. But we had dated—showed up at the same places within twenty minutes of each other, actually. In Simms that counted for something. “Sooner or later you’ll have to realize that I’m not coming back to Simms to be your wife. I can’t be much clearer than that.”

“Sure, that’s what you think now, but you’ll come around.” Gum snapped loudly in my ear. “Hey! The guys are here. Gotta go. We’re going skeet shooting at the gun club tonight. You hang in there, babe. Love ya. Bye.” And the phone went dead.

My left temple pulsated and the pounding in my head increased. That conversation had been a total waste of time. Ken hadn’t believed—or even heard—a word I’d said. He is so convinced that the city is an immoral and inhospitable place to live—and that Simms is as close to Eden as one can get on earth—that he thinks I’ll wake up sooner or later and scuttle my little self back to paradise. And he’ll be waiting with a told-you-so grin on his face and his latest big showy house, ready to carry me across the threshold.

“I’ll build you anything you want, Cassia,” he’d told me. “You name it—ranch, two-story, Colonial, saltbox, even contemporary. As many bedrooms as you want and a bathroom in every one of them. I’ll put a fireplace in every one, too. You want a pool? Fine. A bowling alley? I’ll see what I can do. I’ll even build a place for your grandma so she can be back in Simms and close to you. Won’t she love that?”

If money or prestige had mattered even a whit to me, it might have been tempting, but grandiose displays of wealth turned my stomach. If Ken had offered to give away some of that money to help others, then maybe…

But he hadn’t. He’s a good man, but it probably wouldn’t occur to him. He looks at the world in terms of dollars per square foot, concrete blocks per basement and the distance between two rafters. That, more than anything, made me sure I could never fully love him. Now I felt more empty and isolated than ever. Mattie was busy, Ken was being obtuse and Jane was doing who-knows-what. And I was all alone.

I built myself up for a great pity party and was planning the exact moment I’d open the Chunky Monkey ice cream in my freezer—should it be before or after I finish the Oreos and the fruit salad? Then a cold, wet nose nudged itself into my palm. Beady black eyes peered at me through a fringe of taffy-colored bangs and a raspy tongue laved my hand.

I knelt and took my dog’s gigantic fluffy head in my hands. “You’re my best buddy, aren’t you, sweetie? I don’t need anybody else when I’ve got you. How about a brushing?”

Unfortunately facing an evening of dog brushing and eating two quarts of Black Persimmon Surprise fruit salad didn’t exactly fill my social calendar.

“The city isn’t that much different from Simms, Winslow. I’ll do exactly what I always did in Simms when I was in the doldrums. Remember how we’d take a plate of Mattie’s cookies to the neighbors and have a visit?” But I didn’t have any homemade cookies. I would have to make do with what I had on hand.

I wondered how Adam Cavanaugh felt about tangelos and persimmons.

I almost lost my nerve when I saw that the door to his apartment was open. I smelled frying bacon and heard the coffeepot gurgling. My cheery idea to be neighborly rapidly withered. After deciding that Cavanaugh was probably the last person who would want to see me, I decided instead to offer my salad to the people who lived on my floor. Unfortunately, no one was home. Adam’s was the only apartment in the building with any signs of life.

Pepto lay in the doorway like a palace guard waiting to attack anyone with designs on the king. I studied him from a distance, gauging my safety. One incisor hung over his bottom lip, and his mauled, droopy ear made him look like the feline version of a marauding pirate.

Still, the door was wide open and I could see Adam hovering over the stove in overlarge gray sweatpants and an equally washed-out red sweatshirt. His dark hair was damp, his feet bare, and if I had to judge by the sound of pans and lids clanging harshly as he flung them about, his mood was foul.

When I’d moved in, the landlord had assured me that the occupant of this apartment was “a nice guy who works for a newspaper or something.” I probably should have paid more attention. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for a person’s sterling character, but the landlord also told me that if I ever got into a jam I could safely knock on this guy’s door and ask for help. Since I’d had no intention of doing anything that I couldn’t handle on my own, I hadn’t asked any more questions. Now I wished I’d given my curiosity full range.

Maybe I’d just take my salad home and eat it all by myself.

Unfortunately, the cat chose that moment to yowl like a banshee. I looked down to see if I’d stepped on his tail, and when I looked up again, Adam was at the door staring at me with those disconcerting eyes of his. On the front of his faded sweatshirt were the words Don’t Mess With Me.

Wishing desperately I’d heeded that advice much earlier in the day, I did the only thing I could manage. I thrust the bowl into his hands and blurted, “Salad. I made too much. Since you just came home, I thought you might not have anything in your refrigerator.”

“But you brought me flowers already. You’re too generous.” He was laughing at me, so I laughed, too.

“Sorry I’m being such a hick, but this is how we do it back in Simms. I’ll just go back to my place now and spend some time getting sophisticated. I’ll be back in twenty years or so.”

An odd expression flashed in his attractive eyes. “Don’t get sophisticated. I hate it when that happens. It ruins perfectly nice people.” He stepped back, and with his hand indicated that I should enter. “Want some eggs and bacon?” he offered. “I don’t have any bread, so I made a few pancakes to go with it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“No bother. Come in. Scram, Pepto.” The cat slithered away, looking back at me with a disgruntled expression.

Adam pushed his door wide open and beckoned me in. He made no move to close the door after me. Sometimes I surprise myself, but I’m still an old-fashioned girl at heart and I appreciated his thoughtfulness.

He moved to the cupboard, took out two pottery plates and handed them to me. “You’ll have to move the mail to one side while we eat.”

The table was piled high with important-looking letters and a gargantuan stack of magazines, most of which were news publications and journals, with the occasional glossy print piece.

He peeled back the foil on my bowl and peered curiously inside.

“Fruit salad,” I offered, hoping to clarify.

“Not like any I’ve ever seen.” He stared at the oddly colored stuff for a minute before picking out a piece of star fruit. He bit into it and his eyes narrowed. “It reminds me of a soft-shelled crab.”

“I went a little crazy in the produce section and bought one of everything.”

“I thought that was how you shopped for flowers.” He put down the bowl and went to retrieve the frying pan and a stack of pancakes. He set the hot pan on a pile of magazines, his version of a trivet.

“It’s getting out of hand. My new hobby is trying out everything exotic in the grocery store—and compared to Simms, it’s all exotic. You can’t be picky when shopping at a combination grocery store, post office, feed supply, hardware, beauty parlor, pawn shop, you know.”

“No wonder you’re having fun.” Adam slid scrambled eggs and three slices of bacon onto my plate and some onto his own. He rolled an unbuttered pancake into something that looked like a soft-shelled taco, put it beside his plate and reached for my salad. As he dished it up, I winced. The persimmon dressing was not an appetizing color.

“It’s not bad,” he said finally. “You want some?”

“Since you haven’t grabbed your throat and fallen off the chair, I suppose I’ll try it. Frankly, I wasn’t quite sure I was brave enough to taste it myself.” Actually, the prayer I whispered to myself was more a petition for safety—from my own cooking.

“I’ve eaten stranger things lately,” he said enigmatically. He poked at his chipped plate. “I don’t have much in the way of dishes. I usually use paper.”

“These are fine. I never ate on a paper plate at home. My grandfather didn’t believe in waste.”

“No kidding?”

“He also hated throwing anything away if he still considered it ‘good.’ Once we got something, we used it until it fell apart. Then we repaired it and used it some more.”

“Why didn’t you just buy new?”

“Psalm 41:1.”

He stared at me blankly until I remembered that outside my family, giving only a Bible reference was rarely enough.

‘“Happy are those who consider the poor. The Lord delivers them in the day of trouble.’ My grandfather wouldn’t spend an extra dime on himself if he thought he could give it away. My grandmother still jokes that the widows and the orphans had better things than we did because Grandpa was more generous with them than with us.”

“Was that a problem?”

“No. It wasn’t as though we were involuntarily poor. Poverty was a choice for us, a challenge. How much could we give up in order that others might have more? Believe it or not, Grandpa managed to make it into a game. I learned early how little we actually need.”

“Interesting.” He stared at me with those velvety chocolate-colored eyes and once again I felt a little weak in the knees. “Probably considered loony in this day and age, but definitely interesting.”

As I pushed my chair back from the table and started to say goodbye, a furred cannonball landed in my lap and began to rumble.

“Pepto?” Adam stared at the cat that had just launched itself into my arms. I was equally startled, but Pepto redoubled his purr, turned around twice on my thighs and sat down. “What are you doing, crazy cat?”

“He’s fine. I like animals.”

“No, he’s not. He’s never done that before. Even to me.”

“Animals and small children seem to like me,” I told him as I stroked Pepto’s fur. It felt much softer than it looked. “Grandma says it’s a sign of my ‘pure nature.’My sister Jane says it’s because I wear perfume that’s a combination of catnip and cotton candy. Either way, I don’t mind.”

As Pepto tilted his head upward as if he were looking at me, I scratched that tender dip beneath his chin, and his purr turned to a happy roar. When I lifted my head, Adam was staring at me in disbelief, as if I’d made roses grow out of a dirty ashtray. I chuckled inwardly. It was easy to woo the cat. I’m just glad it’s not on my agenda to win his master’s heart.

CHAPTER 5

Animals and small children, huh?

Adam pondered the notion as he scrubbed out his frying pan. He’d never in a million years expected Pepto to do an about-face and decide to actually like someone. He took a pad of steel wool and worked at a bit of egg yolk stubbornly clinging to the pan. Of course, loath as he might be to admit it, Adam had liked his new neighbor, too. Even without the bird-of-paradise, persimmons and improbable red hair, she’d still be charming and funny. She was a breath of fresh air for his very stale attitude, and having her here tonight had provided a moment of relief from the pressure mounting inside him.

He’d turned into the equivalent of a human pressure cooker lately, and Cassia Carr was an unexpected release valve. He’d been tempted to lecture her about the wisdom of being as open and trusting as she’d been in her little hometown, but decided instead that he’d just keep an eye on her. The inhabitants of this building were all good people—many had lived here twenty years or more. Cassia was obviously a quick study and would develop street smarts quickly enough without his advice.

The phone rang just as Adam put the frying pan in the dish rack to dry. He glanced at the caller ID. It was his agent and best friend, Terrance Becker.

“Adam, old man, you’re back! Listen, buddy, are you all right? I heard you had a pretty rough time over there.”

“No rougher than anyone else. At least I didn’t starve to death.” Sickening images shimmered in his mind like heat waves off the desert floor. Adam hadn’t known until recently how painful death from malnutrition could be.

“You did tighten your belt a couple notches, though,” Terrance said. “I talked to Frankie.”

Frankie Wachter was the photographer who traveled with Adam. He hoped Frankie didn’t have too big a mouth. Terrance didn’t need to know every gory detail of their trip to Burundi. There were some things Adam would just as soon keep under wraps. The wrenching emotions both he and Frankie had experienced were private. His research and articles could speak for him, and nothing else need be said.

“The magazine loved your stuff, by the way. You sent them so much that they’re serializing it. Frankie got some great pictures, too. Heart wrenching. Whenever you want to quit freelancing and write for just one publication, let me know, okay? I’ve got several offers for you.”

Adam grunted a non-comment. Being tied down had never suited him. As a journalist whose career had centered primarily on human rights issues, Adam wanted to be free to go where circumstance and instinct took him. Ironically, this last time it had taken him to one of the poorest places he’d ever been—Burundi, a landlocked country about the size of Maryland whose population had an overall life expectancy of less than forty-seven years, and 12 percent of whom were infected with AIDS. The tension between the Tutsis and the Hutus left the people in constant turmoil. It was a difficult life, especially for the youngest, most helpless members of society, the children. When Adam had gone in to do a story on a small relief organization that was attempting to provide minimal life-sustaining provisions for the people, he’d had no idea that what he would see and experience could so utterly change him.

Knowing the statistics was nothing compared to seeing the reality. If 70 percent of all malnourished people in the world were children and forty thousand a day died of starvation, then where were the people who could help them? Vulnerable, helpless and defenseless, the children had greater nutritional demands than the adults and were utterly unable to forage for themselves. At night, when the camp was silent, Adam had lain on his cot staring into the blackness, wondering what he could do to put a thumb in a dike of this magnitude. Life was leaking out of these young ones, and he had no way to stop it.

“So what are you planning next?”

Adam felt himself flinch. He’d drifted light-years away from Terrance and the conversation about his career. “Not a thing.”

“A little R & R? Good idea. A few days off and you’ll feel like a new man.” Terrance sounded worried. “That’s what you meant, right?”

“Not really. I’m burned and I’m bummed. The last thing I feel like doing is working.”

“You don’t have to cover every tragedy in the world,” Terrance told him. “Not everything you do has to be nominated for a Pulitzer. Lighten up. Do something not quite so heavy for a change, a little mind candy. How about a piece on baseball? Or music, like ‘Adam Cavanaugh on Aging Rockers— The Dolls, the Dope and the Depends.’ Boomers might eat it up.”

“Good try, but no thanks. I’m tired in a way I’ve never been tired before.” Wordsmith that he was, even Adam couldn’t describe it. “It’s in my bones this time. Watching children die and being absolutely helpless to stop it changes a person.”

“But like you said in your article, those kids were past the point of no return before you ever got to them.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier. Or prettier. Sorry, Terrance. This writer is taking time off—a long time. I haven’t got it in me anymore.”

“Just for a while…”

“Maybe forever.”

He heard Terrance’s sharp intake of breath and knew what was coming next.

“Promise me this, Adam. Before you throw in the towel, give it some time. Find a story to write that isn’t going to eat your heart out and see how that feels before you make any rash decisions.”

“That’s not going to help.” Something had broken in him that needed to heal—his heart. No story he could think of was going to distract him enough for that to happen.

“Just promise.”

“Only if something falls into my lap. I’m not going out to look for a fluff piece just to prove to you that I’m telling you the truth.”

“Think this through, Adam….”

“Gotta go. I’ll call you when that story comes knocking on my door.”

Adam stared at the phone a long time after he’d hung up. He couldn’t believe he’d just chopped away at the cable that had kept him connected to life for the past fifteen years, had brought him a Pulitzer and a myriad of other journalistic awards. But the import and meaning he’d always attributed to life, the idea of God, peace and goodwill on earth, humanity and brotherhood had all evaporated during his time in Burundi. Something was deeply wrong with a world in which a child could be born, live and die and leave no more impression than a raindrop in an ocean.

CHAPTER 6

Why people think city living is so great is beyond me.

Everyone says things are so convenient here. Maybe, but I think it’s a little weird that I could order a pizza, a taxi and an ambulance at the same time and count on the pizza to come first. Of course, in Simms the rumor that you’re sick can arrive before the illness does, so maybe it’s, as Grandpa always said, “a horse apiece.”

I rode the brakes as I nosed my way into the right lane on I-494 and made ready to pull onto the exit ramp that led to the “shortcut” I’ve devised to get to work. Shortcut…hah! There’s no such thing. Not here, at least.

In Simms we talk in miles. If something is sixty miles away, it’s probably sixty minutes away, too, give or take a few, depending on the weight of my foot on the accelerator. Here, miles have no meaning, as far as I can tell. It takes me thirty-five minutes to get to work if I time it right and three times that in rush-hour traffic. I don’t know if I’ve driven five miles or fifty. I only know that it seems like a hundred.

I haven’t got it fine-tuned yet, but I’m getting there. I haven’t been late for work in a week and I’ve completely gotten over the urge to shriek every time I hit the gas and edge off an on-ramp into speeding traffic. I’ll just say this—more than once I’ve been thankful that I’m right with God when I’m pulling onto the freeway.

My car was a hand-me-down from my father, who got it as a hand-me-down from a parishioner. Actually, it probably belonged to a few people before that, as well. As pedigreed cars go, mine’s an elderly mutt, over eighty-four in dog years.

As I pulled into Parker Bennett’s parking lot I heard a yell from behind me. “Hey, lady, your muffler just fell off!”

I slowed and looked through my rearview mirror. I assumed it was a joke, but with my car anything is possible. Then I saw who was standing in the middle of the parking lot grinning with that gap-toothed grin of his. I’d met Randy Mills at work first, but I also ran into him at the church I attended a couple Sundays ago. How great is that? God gave me a Christian friend right off the bat. He’s a lean and lanky scarecrow kind of guy, with sandy hair and sandy freckles. I leaned out the window and waved before pulling into a parking space. By the time I’d gathered my purse and my lunch, Randy was standing arms akimbo, theatrically studying my tires.

“Sorry, I was mistaken. It wasn’t your muffler at all. It was your whole transmission that dropped. Do you have tape and bubblegum in your tool kit, or do you want me to fix it for you? I’ve got a bale of twine in my trunk.”

“Very funny, Randy. I don’t make fun of your car.” I tried my best to look indignant.

“Don’t bother locking it, Cassia,” Randy advised. “If you’re lucky, somebody will come by and steal it.”

“Not if I can help it. I put it in the garage every night.”

“No kidding?” Randy sounded and looked amazed. “You actually protect that thing?”

“At least I’m not like some of my neighbors who leave their expensive cars out at night because there’s too much useless junk in their garages.”

“Right,” Randy said with a grin. “You drive your useless junk.”

We fell into step together as we walked toward the front doors of Parker Bennett’s main office. I had to skip every few steps to keep up with the long-legged accountant.

“It’s a good car,” I said defensively. “Never a problem. I have it serviced regularly.”

“I’m sure you do. Just don’t wash it. It’s only the rust that’s holding it together.”

“You’re just jealous because your car doesn’t have two hundred and thirty thousand miles on it.”

“No kidding? Two thirty?” Randy whistled. “I didn’t know they could get that high.” Then his genial face sobered. “Seriously, Cassia, it’s time to get something newer. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but you shouldn’t be driving city streets in that thing. You’re going to end up stranded someplace.” He eyed me up and down. “A lamb among the wolves.”

“I can change a tire, check the oil, test the air in the tires and even make sure the alternator belt is tight.”

“Maybe so, but rebuilding the whole chassis is probably beyond you, and that’s what you’ll need to do soon.”

I skipped again to match my steps to Randy’s long stride. “If it’s any comfort, my sister agrees with you. She’s suggested that I take her car this winter and she’ll buy a new one.”

“Why don’t you get the new one?” Randy held the door for me.

“I don’t need one.”

“Sometimes life is about more than ‘needing.’ What if you want one?”

“But I don’t.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“For the last eighteen months, Randy, the closest thing I’ve come to a traffic jam is having to wait for a semi to come by in the other lane so that I can pass a tractor. Besides, I can use a pair of jumper cables just as well as the next girl.”

“I’m sure you can.” As he sighed and rolled his eyes, mine followed his gaze upward to the three-story waterfall and banks of glass elevators that glided whisper soft up and down. “No matter how long I work here, I don’t think I’ll get over all this wasted space. All of Simms could fit in here, with a floor left over.”

“It’s pretty impressive, though, don’t you think?” he asked.

“But is it good for anything? That’s the question.”

Randy stopped to stare at me. I caught a glimpse of my hair in the polished chrome base of the elevator as we waited for the cab to return for us. It was particularly unruly today, framing my face in a boisterous cloud. Sometimes I think my hair has more personality than I do. It certainly has a mind of its own.

Sometimes Ken accuses me of looking like a fall maple in full color. That’s one of his nicer compliments. Usually he compares me to something from his work orbit. “Cassia, you’re pretty as a new power saw,” “clever as a Swiss army knife” or “feisty as new sandpaper.” When I’ve really pleased him, he always says, “I’ve never had or sold a model home quite as fine as you.” When he and I don’t agree, it’s always, “Darlin,’ quit talking like your attic’s not finished yet.” Quite a romantic, that Ken.

“Does everything have to be useful for you to enjoy it, Cassia?” Randy asked, bringing me back to the present.

“Of course not, but it helps.”

“They must raise children differently where you come from.”

“Simms? Maybe they do. I know people who still make their children apologize to telemarketers before they hang up on them.” I paused to eyeball him for a change. “Tell me, Randy, what’s your story? You don’t get to hear mine without sharing a little of your own. I know you’re an accountant and that you go to church just a few blocks from here, but other than that…’

He shrugged his wide but bony shoulders beneath his jacket. “Not much to tell. I was born and raised in a middle-class suburb of the Twin Cities. Had a good education, went to the university, became a CPA and here I am, at Parker Bennett.”

“That’s a little dull, don’t you think? Surely there must be people in your life.”

“A younger brother and sister, two parents who are teachers. And a pack of first and second cousins that I see on holidays. I’m single because the right girl just hasn’t come along yet. And I have a cat named Franklin, after the stove in my parents’ cabin.”

“That’s what I was talking about! The people in your life, what you do for fun! That’s the best part of a person’s life, not what they own.”

“What is it with you, anyway? I’ve never met anyone as—” he searched for words “—as content as you are.” He scratched his sandy head in puzzlement. “You’ve come here every day for nearly a month in your old junker of a car, carrying a sack lunch and humming like a canary. The execs drive BMWs or Jags and go out for power lunches to grouse about how hard they have it. What’s your secret?”

He looked so sincere and cute and vulnerable standing there trying to puzzle me out that I wanted to give him a squeeze. I did, however, restrain my impulses.

“My secret? Randy, I’m the most transparent person on the planet. With me, what you see is what you get.”

“That’s what you say, but there’s something…” Randy looked so puzzled that I had to laugh.

“So you want my secret? Okay, I’ll give you my confidential formula. But it’s one I’m sure you already know.” I dug in my purse for a scrap of paper and came up with half a deposit slip from my checkbook. I scribbled down the information for which Randy was digging, then I slipped the scrap inside the little New Testament I always carry and pressed it into his palm. “Here you are.”

“I’ve already got a Bible, Cassia.”

I ignored him.

The elevator arrived as he looked at the packet in his hand. As we stepped inside, I asked. “What floor do you want? I’ll drive.”

“Sixth floor. I want to stop at the cafeteria and grab some coffee. I got up too late to make my own this morning.” Then he opened the little Testament and read what I’d scratched on the bit of paper. Hebrews 13:5, one of my favorites.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

He slipped the Testament into his pocket and stepped off the elevator on the sixth floor shaking his head.

On the way down the hall to my office, I ran through the game I’d been playing every day since I joined Parker Bennett. It was one my mother always used to break the ice and help us kids remember each other’s names at vacation Bible school. Children would introduce themselves by giving their first names and an adjective that described them. I was always Curly Cassia and my sister Jolly Jane. Over the years our classes were filled with notables such as Mucky Matthew (something to do with the fact that he did barn chores before coming to church school), Blinking Bonnie, Running Ronnie, Silly Sarah and, my personal favorite, Daring Dan. The game got to be such a popular tradition that all the vacation Bible school classes used it, and it’s been my memory tool ever since. It’s come in particularly handy since I was hired at Parker Bennett. Every face is new, and I find myself applying adjectives to each person I meet. In my portion of the office alone are Stunning Stella, Paranoid Paula, Betting Bob, Thoughtful Thelma, Ego Ed, Jealous Jan and—even though it’s not playing the game right—Petty Betty. The only one I didn’t need to add a descriptive adjective to was someone with an already memorable name—Cricket.

Cricket is about my age, and while I’m tall and slender, she’s short and round and always has a glorious smile that can light up a room. Cricket told me immediately how she came to have her unusual name. Her much-in-love parents—Jim and Mimi—tried to give her a name that was a combination of their own two names. Unfortunately, all they could come up with was Jimini. It wasn’t long till everyone was calling the baby Jimini Cricket, and before long, Jimini had gone by the wayside and now she’s just Cricket. She’s forever fighting her weight, loves food, abhors exercise and thinks television reality shows are ridiculous. She also feels the need to watch every one of those shows just to make sure that someone doesn’t slip something relevant or enlightening into one of them. Cricket has been a real blessing in the office, not to mention a huge dose of comic relief.

That’s not to say my office mates aren’t all wonderful people—they are, and I like them all very much. But each does have a quirk or two that stand out above all others—Ed, for example.

Ed’s a nice guy. He’s friendly, cheerful and generous. He’s also got a mirror taped to the inside drawer of his desk so he can check his hair for a strand out of place and his teeth for an errant speck of spinach. If Ed lost his hair, he would run right out and buy a wardrobe of hairpieces—a rug for every room, so to speak. Paula and Betty (it figures) think Ed had something “done” around his eyes over his last vacation. Thelma says he just looked “rested,” but apparently Paula counts crow’s-feet and keeps a tally. Now they’re trying to work up the nerve to ask who his plastic surgeon was. I’ve warned them against it. If Ed hasn’t had a touch-up, he’ll be as upset as a woman who is asked when her baby is due six months after she’s delivered.

I hope they aren’t counting my wrinkles. I didn’t have many when I came to Parker Bennett, but they could be adding up quickly now. I’m not much for looking in the mirror. Just seeing myself full-length in a department-store window surprises me. Since all the mirrors in Simms are attached to dressers, I’d even forgotten how long my legs are. Now when I see them in a full-length mirror, I’m reminded of walking on stilts. Ken did tell me once, however, that his buddies thought I had great legs. It was one of the first and only times I’d wished that they’d stick to talking about trucks, power washers, construction materials and the like.

I’d had the most trouble finding an adjective for Thelma. I went back and forth between Thoughtful and Thrifty for a few days before I settled on Thoughtful. She’s the dearest, kindest person in the office, always remembering to ask how Winslow is settling in, to compliment Stella on her new shoes or Jan on a different haircut. She also carries her lunch to work in the same paper bag all week, washes out Baggies so she can reuse them and insists that a teabag can be reused at least four or five times before it loses its punch.

I passed the office of my boss, Ned Lakestone, the man who’s in charge of the many smaller offices that make up the customer service department. His door is rarely open and I don’t think he likes people very much. Customer service is an odd place for a recluse to work, but Stella assures me that Ned’s the best kind of boss to have—one who never interrupts his employees’ workday with instructions or directives. According to Stella, that type is a real nuisance. Besides, if Mr. Lakestone got involved with us, she probably wouldn’t have time to change her nail polish every day.

For some strange reason, as I neared the office, the fine hairs on the back of my neck began to tingle. It reminded me of Boosters, Ken’s dog, when he senses some change in the air or nearly imperceptible hint that something’s not quite as it should be. Then the fur on Boosters’s neck stands up and he puts his nose to the ground because something is very suspicious. Looking back, I realized that if I’d known what was coming, every hair on my head would have stood up and taken notice.

I pushed my way through the throng of people who’d crowded the hallway in front of the customer service department and wondered what on earth was going on in my office. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have suspected they were having a rummage and bake sale inside and everyone was gathering for a first look at the merchandise. Now, that tells me I’ve spent far too much time in Simms.

So for the second time in not so very many days, I forged ahead. “Excuse me, sorry, I didn’t mean to step on your foot, excuse me…” The door was shut, so, not knowing what I’d find on the other side, I opened it, slid in sideways through the crack and shut it again.

“What’s going on here…?” My voice drifted away as I stared in wonderment at the sight before me. Ego Ed was standing on, of all places, the top of his desk. Everything on the desk had been swept to one side and he was poised there, foam coffee cup in one hand, holding his arms in the air in a victor’s triumphant V. When I came in, he glanced at me and yelled, “Yee-haw!”

And he was the sanest one in the pack.

Petty Betty was going in circles—literally, as if one foot had been nailed to the floor and she kept circling around it, getting nowhere fast. Her hands were flapping like pathetic little bird wings and her eyes were wild.

Stella was dumping nail polish bottles into her purse and ignoring her telephone which rang incessantly.

Betting Bob was on the phone in loud conversation with what sounded like his bookie. “Flytail in the second! Flytail in the second!” I’d been at work only three weeks, so I’m not fluent in what Stella calls Bob’s “gamble speak,” but I was pretty sure that was the language he was talking.

Cricket and Thelma were in intense conversation, and Paranoid Paula was blatantly eavesdropping. Paula had her purse clutched to her chest and kept muttering over and over to the other two, who were ignoring her, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. You might be sorry. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!”

The filing cabinets appeared to have ruptured and hemorrhaged all over the floor, and the rest of the room was in equal disarray. It was as if someone had gleefully run through the place overturning garbage cans and pushing things off desks.

Stella, despite the fact that she was carrying on a private conversation with herself punctuated by words like “shoes,” “diamonds” and “I’ll show them,” seemed to be one of the calmer of the lot.

I neared her desk cautiously, wary of flying emery boards and cuticle clippers. “Stella, what’s going on in here?”

Her head shot up and she stared at me. “You don’t know?”

“I realize that I didn’t get in as early today as I usually do, but I’m still on time. What’s everyone else doing here so early?”

“I called Thelma,” she explained mysteriously. “And she called Paula and Jan. They were supposed to tell Bob, Ed, Betty, Cricket and you. Maybe they didn’t have your home phone number.”

“Call me for what?” Alice, when she fell through the looking glass, had nothing on me.

“To tell you that we won!”

‘“Wee one’? Who had a baby? I didn’t realize anyone was due. It didn’t say who was expecting on your collection envelope.”

“No, we w-o-n. Us. These people here.” Ed made a gesture around the room. “We. Us. You!”

Cricket tossed a pile of papers into the air like confetti and let them fall to the floor.

What was she, nuts?

“Won? Won what?” I couldn’t think of any contests other than Parker Bennett’s employee of the month award, and that wasn’t all that big a deal. Most of the employee photos they hung on the lobby wall looked like mug shots anyway.

“The lottery, of course!”

“The lottery?” I echoed, feeling more stupid by the second.

By then Cricket was in a world of her own doing some sort of silly dance step around the perimeter of the room singing “New York, New York.” Cricket is a terrible singer, but I did figure out that she was chirping about the Big Apple. She stopped long enough to grab my hands and twirl me around in a circle. “The Power-ball! Cassia, haven’t you been watching the billboards or listening to the radio?”

“I’ve been doing a lot around the apartment,” I admitted. “Winslow and I have had a lot of walks….”

She finally stopped what she was doing and looked straight into my eyes. “Cassia, remember those tickets we bought? One of them was the winning number. We’re all millionaires.”

“I didn’t buy any tickets!”

Grandpa would do backflips in his grave if he thought I’d been involved in any kind of gambling. Oh, Grandpa wouldn’t have liked this at all.

“Of course you bought tickets. What do you think you put five dollars into the envelope in my desk for?”

“Somebody was having a baby or a birthday or…”

Stella’s face registered astonishment. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“About what?”

Cricket’s eyes grew large. “She really doesn’t know! Tell her about the pool, Stella.”

“The last Friday of every month we all put five bucks into the pool, and I buy lottery tickets for the Powerball. We’ve been doing it for ages. It’s been just for fun, but this weekend…” Stella could hardly continue. “We won!” Understanding dawned in Stella’s beautiful blue eyes. “And you thought you were putting money toward a baby gift?”

I nodded dumbly. I had a very bad feeling rising in my chest.

“No one had a baby, Cassia. The money you put in the envelope on Friday was for lottery tickets.”

“But it’s always for someone’s retirement or wedding or…”

“Except on the last Friday of every month.”

“But I’ve never been here on a ‘last Friday.’”

“That’s why you didn’t know. That’s the day we buy lottery tickets.”

“I wouldn’t have put money in that envelope if I’d known it was for that.” I could see Grandpa, at warp speed, spinning in his grave.

“Too late now,” Stella said. “It’s yours.” She reached for a sheet of paper and thrust it into my hands. “On Saturday morning I pick up the money and buy the tickets. I photocopied all the tickets onto a sheet for you, just like I do for everyone else. I faxed them to you. Everyone knows to check on their numbers. And Saturday night we won!”

“But I didn’t do anything,” I protested. Including hooking up the fax machine that annoys me so much. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

“Of course you did something. Everyone who puts money into the kitty shares equally in the win.”

“Well, I can’t take it. The rest of you can split it. Have a nice dinner or something. On me.” Cricket’s eyes grew so round I thought they would pop right out of her head. Frantically she gave me the signal to zip my mouth.

“It isn’t going to work that way.”

“I don’t want it. Give me my five dollars back and we’ll pretend this never happened.” I felt panic rising in my gut. I was an innocent babe where money was concerned. Grandpa had seen to that.

“Are you nuts?” Stella’s ice-blue eyes were wide with astonishment. “This is the deal, Cassia. Anybody who puts money in the pot shares in the winnings. I suppose we never really thought anything big would come of this, but now that it has, rules are rules. You have to take it.”

“She’s in shock—pay no attention to her,” Cricket babbled. “You can’t expect to get anything sensible out of her right now. Give her some time to get used to this.”

“I don’t need time,” I pleaded, my stomach sick. “You take it. Giving money to me is like shipping snow to Antarctica! I don’t need it!”

“Where do you live, Cassia?” Stella demanded. “An apartment somewhere, right?”

“Yes, but…”

“How many bedrooms do you have? One or two?”

“One, but it’s what I can afford….” I snapped my mouth shut, seeing the point Stella was trying to make and not wanting to help her make it.

“And what about that dog?”

“Winslow? What about him?”

“Does he get to be outside and play?”

“When I can take him. We go to the park.”

“Wouldn’t you like a fenced-in yard for him?”

“Of course, but…”

“And another bedroom or two so you could move around?”

“Yes, but…”

“And where do you give your money?”

“Tithing, mostly. The rest I live on.”

“Tithing, huh? Isn’t that like ten percent of your income? And didn’t you say something about going back to school to finish a master’s program?”

“Yes…” My suspicious meter was suddenly flailing.

“Here’s a chance to give much more than the ten percent of the pittance you earn here.”

“Of course, but I don’t believe in the lottery. It’s like, like…like ill-gotten gains. Do you know how many families are hurt by gambling?”

As I spoke, Bob yelled in the background, “Whaddayamean it’s too late to place that bet? Do you know who you’re talking to here?”

“Then I’m glad you did win a portion of this money,” Cricket concluded earnestly. “Because you, at least, will handle it properly.”

“I really don’t know what I’d do with a million dollars, Stella. You’re sure I can’t give it back? I wish my grandfather were here….”

“A million dollars?”

Something in Stella’s voice was so odd that I looked up at her. She was staring at me in amazement and the start of a smile played around her lips. “You aren’t going to get a million dollars, Cassia.”

“I’m not?” Good news at last. I wished Cricket would quit smirking at me. She was not helping my mental state.

“Cassia,” Stella said gently, “the jackpot was almost one hundred and eighty-five million dollars. Your share is…” She held up a slip of paper on which she’d done her own math earlier. “This.”

On the paper was written “$20,555,000.00.” Over twenty million dollars.

A rushing filled my ears as blood raced to my head. I reached for the desk just as my kneecaps liquefied.

“You’ll get used to the idea,” Ed assured me as he jumped down from his desk. “But I got used to the idea in a minute or two.” He stabbed his fist into the air. “Vacation time. Look out, fishies! Lake cabin, here I come!” He came to his senses for a moment. “Oh, man, I’d better look at boats right away. Maybe a cabin cruiser.” He darted for his phone.

“Who’d waste money on fishing when you can travel?” Betty said. “I’m going to go around the world. I wonder which direction I should go first—around the equator or over the poles?”

As we were talking, Paranoid Paula sat at her desk writing furiously while the others bounced frenetically from one dream to another.

“What are you doing?” I asked, shakiness in my voice. This was too surreal for me.

“Writing my will.” Paula paused to lick the tip of her pencil and began to write again. “If I’m going to be a multimillionaire, I don’t want that lazy, no-good son-in-law of mine to have a dime. Why, if I were hit by a bus in the parking lot on my way home today, he’d quit his job, put his feet up and never move again except to change the batteries in the remote.”

I felt tremors running through my body, and my hands shook as I put them to my cheeks. My nerve endings were flailing like a downed electrical cable, blue fire shooting from the tips of the exposed wire.

“Well, we aren’t going to get quite as much as we’d all like to think,” Betty announced. “After all, a good share will go to taxes.” Then she brightened. “But I think we can all manage on the few million that are left.”

I didn’t even realize I’d fainted until I woke up with Thelma’s worried face next to mine and my office mates frantically waving pieces of paper near my face to give me more air. Ed unceremoniously helped me to sit up and propped me against the side of Stella’s desk.

“I’ve called someone to take you home,” Stella said briskly. “You need time to think this through. The rest of us have known since Sunday.”

“I fainted, too,” Betty chimed in. “Plop. Just like that. Right on the kitchen table. I barely missed a hot casserole. You’ll snap out of it soon enough. I did.”

“Who did you call?” I asked faintly. I’d never given anyone my sister’s phone number, and Grandma didn’t drive. Even Cricket didn’t know much about me outside of work.

“Randy, that guy you always talk to in the parking lot. He’s going to drive your car home and take a taxi back to work.”

At that moment there was a loud rap on the door, and Bob opened it a crack to let Randy through. The din in the hallway was deafening.

“The media has arrived,” Bob said breathlessly. “Randy, there’s a back door. You’d better use that to get Cassia out of here. Otherwise she’s going to be mobbed.”

Randy nodded briskly. Thrusting his hands under my arms, he hoisted me to my feet. “Come on, Cassia, let’s get you home. And one day we’ll go shopping for a new car for you. I hear you came into enough money to buy it.”

CHAPTER 7

Apparently I fainted again when I saw the people clustered around my car. I didn’t come to until we were nearing my apartment building.

I looked across the car at Randy, who was driving with grim determination on his face. When he heard me stir, he turned toward me.

“Are you okay? You didn’t bump your head or anything, did you?”

I investigated the top of my head for lumps. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve never fainted before,” I admitted, “except the time I had stitches and the injection to kill pain hadn’t started to work yet. I feel really silly.”

“If you were going to faint again, this was as good a time as any. I probably would have fainted, too.”

I studied his profile. “It isn’t true, is it? Any of this, I mean. Did Cricket put you guys up to this? What a joker she is.”

“No joke, Cassia. No prank. You and your office mates won a hundred and eighty-five million dollars. Of course, after taxes, if you all decide to take a lump sum, that will be more like…”

I covered my ears like a small child. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know.”

The accountant in Randy got the best of him. “You can’t stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. It’s something you’ve got to deal with.”

All the things I’d ever learned about money from Proverbs began to tumble through my head like a bunch of rogue gymnasts.

Riches won’t help on the day of judgment…. Trust in money and down you go! Don’t weary yourself trying to get rich…. The person who wants to get rich quick will only get into trouble….

“Maybe I could give it away.” A flutter of hope rose in me.

Randy swiveled his head to stare at me. “Give it away?”

“I could…” Then I felt as if I’d smacked myself in the face. “But I don’t even know how to do that!”

“You couldn’t just stand on the street corner and hand out money,” Randy said, his voice thick with sarcasm. Then he looked at me and I could tell he regretted being sharp with me. “You wouldn’t want that kind of money to go to just anyone, Cassia,” he pleaded. “It would have to go to good causes, to bona fide charities….”

“All right. Name some. I’ll call them.” Didn’t anyone understand how catastrophic this was? I’m the last person on earth who should be entrusted with this kind of money. I’m completely inexperienced with large sums of cash. Besides, Christians are squeamish about things like the lottery. Even though the Bible doesn’t expressly say don’t do it, there are many reasons not to. For me to take lottery money as my own was nearly unthinkable.

I sat back to consider my nonexistent options.

“I’m pretty clear on the fact that I can’t take it, Randy. Proverbs 28:22 is the clincher, don’t you think?”

The blank expression on his face told me he hadn’t been thinking that at all.

“‘Trying to get rich quick is evil and leads to poverty,’” I quoted. “I really can’t afford to get any more poverty-stricken than I already am, you know. Except for that twenty million, I’m barely making it right now.”

He gave me a very pained expression. “Listen to me, Cassia. I want you to go home and talk to your family and friends. Then call an attorney. He’ll probably have you contact your banker or investment counselor and an accountant. Let those people help you decide.” His look was pleading. “You’ll do that, won’t you?”

“I suppose it’s a good idea. My sister is a loan officer in a bank. She could help me.”

Randy looked relieved. I felt like hugging him for caring.

“She won’t believe me. She’ll say I’ve been dreaming.”

“And in twenty-four hours, after you go to lottery headquarters, she won’t be able to say that. The press will be there. You and your winnings will be front-page news.”

“I don’t know why everyone wants to rush in and get their money right away. Don’t we have to wait for…for something? Anything?”

“There’s probably not much sense in waiting. With so many of you involved, the news is out anyway.”

Twenty-four hours. I have twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of being a millionaire. It’s just not right. After all, I’ve had twenty-eight years practicing to be a pauper.

Randy pulled up in front of my building, hopped out of the car and ran around to my side to help me out. I guess I wasn’t as steady as I thought, because I nearly pitched forward out the door and onto the sidewalk.

Fortunately Adam Cavanaugh came around the corner at that moment carrying a bag of groceries. When he saw Randy trying to prop me up, he set down the groceries and strode over.

“Cassia, are you okay?”

Well, do I look okay?

“She’s had a shock. I offered to bring her home, but…”

“I can take her from here,” Adam said briskly. “I live in the apartment below hers.”

“Is that okay with you, Cassia?” Randy asked. He looked worried about turning me over to this big, rugged-looking stranger.

“Sure. Why not?” I was giddy and feeling light-headed. At the moment I wasn’t sure I’d care if he handed me off to a boatful of tuna fishermen.

I’m not a little girl—I’m five feet eight inches tall—but Adam somehow managed to scoop me up and carry me into the building.

“She can sit at my place until she’s feeling better,” he told Randy, who’d carried the groceries in behind us. “What happened to her?”

Randy sighed and shrugged. “It’s pretty hard to explain. I think Cassia should tell you.” He turned to me. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Fit as a fiddle. Right as rain,” I yammered.

He took his business card out of the silver card case in his pocket and scribbled on it. “I put my home number on the back. If you need anything, call me.” Randy gave me a compassionate glance. “I’ll say a prayer for you, Cassia.”

“You’re a saint, but I’m going to be fine. Really.”

As soon as I figure out how to get rid of this money.

Reluctantly he backed out of the apartment. Adam gave him a reassuring nod and he disappeared.

Adam turned to me. “What happened?”

I opened my mouth and shut it again. How did I tell him that by tomorrow at this time I would own more money than any person in the world should have? It is obviously impossible to convince anyone that I don’t want or need the money. I had to talk to someone who would understand.

“May I use your phone? I need to call my grandmother.”

Adam looked a little annoyed, but didn’t speak. Instead, he handed me the cordless phone and sat down in the chair across from mine. Pepto, cat-food breath and all, crawled up next to me, purring.

I dialed, hoping Mattie would pick up, but her phone rang until the answering machine clicked on and Mattie’s message began. “Is this thing working? I can’t hear anything…yes? Oh! Okay. Hello, this is Mattie Carr. I’m not here right now—do I have to say that? Of course they know I’m not here! Well, leave a message and your number and I’ll call you back…. Unless you’re calling long distance. Then you call me back, okay? There. How was that? Do I hang up now…?”

Grandma had refused to rerecord the message, and it sounded so like Mattie that Jane told me not even to attempt to get her to change it.

Jane didn’t answer either. I was transferred into her voice mail at both home and work. I debated calling Ken. He still didn’t accept the idea that I wasn’t madly in love with him, and I didn’t want to have him think that I wanted his advice about what to do with the money. Unless I’d underestimated him, I’d guess that Ken’s idea of charity would probably be new four-wheelers for all his buddies.

That left me to talk to Winslow, Pepto or the man across from me staring at me as if I’d landed from outer space.

Although I didn’t mean it to happen, tears started coursing down my face like little rivers. Some women cry pretty, but I’m not one of them. My nose gets red, my eyes bloodshot and my skin puffy.

Adam reached for a box of tissues and put it on the couch pillow next to me. Then he sat back, crossed his arms and waited for me to be done bawling.

I’d thought I was going to build up a real head of steam and cry for hours, but with Pepto purring beside me, kneading my thigh with his paws, and Adam patiently biding his time, I fizzled out midcry, although it took me a couple minutes to mop up and wish I’d had a pillowcase to put over my head to hide what were probably big red blotches, pale white skin and an unflattering starburst of freckles punctuating the mess.

“Want to talk about it?” Adam looked compassionate, nonjudgmental and mildly interested.

He was here, and Mattie and Jane weren’t. “The most awful thing happened to me today!”

“Did you lose your job? Get mugged? Have your car stolen?”

His eyes widened each time I shook my head.

“You didn’t get…you know…attacked by a man….”

“No!” And I collapsed again into a mess of tears. “I won the lottery!” As I was crying, I heard him get up, run water and put a teakettle on the stove. A few cupboard doors opened and closed. Shortly he returned carrying two mugs of steaming tea, spoons and a bowl of sugar on a tray.

He pressed a mug into my hands, and I took it gratefully. I watched him as he stoically waited for me to pull myself together. What an incredible-looking man, thought my wayward mind. Even in such dire straits, Adam could bully his way into my thoughts.

“I’m so sorry. I had no intention of falling apart. I’ll just go back to my place….”

“I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, his full attention on me for the first time since we’d met. “I thought you said you’d won the lottery.”

“I did. That’s what’s so awful!”

“Let me get this straight.” Adam leaned forward, his dark eyes skewering me with intensity. “You won money and you’re upset. I can’t say I understand that. How much money did you win?”

I’d intentionally been blanking out the figure, so I said, “You know the big lottery? The one they drew for on Saturday night?”

“Yeah. There was an obscene amount of money in it—around a hundred and eighty-five million….” His voice trailed off and his eyes grew wide. Adam has lovely eyes. “You won that?”

I nodded miserably. “Not all of it. My office pool won it. Apparently nine of us participated and have to share it. It comes out to, oh, I don’t know, something like twenty million. What am I going to do?” I felt the tears coming again.

He sat back, and I could tell he was stunned. He hesitated before answering, “Celebrate?”

“I can’t celebrate.”

“Why not?” His handsome face looked so puzzled I almost laughed.

“You don’t know me very well,” I began, “but I’m the daughter and granddaughter of preachers. For them, there’s a whole lot wrong with winning the lottery—ill-gotten gains, potential addictions, deprivations of family and who knows what else? Gambling is frowned upon in our family.”

“Then why did you buy the ticket?”

“I didn’t know I was buying it. I thought I was putting five dollars into the office kitty for a gift for someone!”

His face began to clear, and amusement crept into his voice. “And though you didn’t seek it or want it or even know you were a part of it, you won over twenty million dollars?”

My shoulders slumped. “Yes. Isn’t it awful?”

He stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“I tried to give it back, but my office mates won’t hear of it. Even Cricket, who I can usually count on to listen to me, insists the money is mine. I can’t get my sister or grandmother on the phone. They’d understand my problem. I have to get rid of it somehow!”

His eyes narrowed. “So you’d be willing to put twenty million dollars back in the hands of the people who approve of the lottery?”

I opened my mouth to speak and snapped it shut again. I hadn’t thought about it like that. I would be handing the money back to people who’d use it to sweeten another pot. Then which was worse? Keeping it or giving it back? Suddenly I didn’t know. I started to cry again.

Pepto, who didn’t like my tears, stood on my legs and tried to bat away the moisture with his paw.

“Do you want to go back to your apartment?” Adam asked gently.

Miserably I shook my head. I was terribly bad company right now and didn’t want to be alone with myself. “Can I stay here for a bit? Just until I can find my sister or grandmother.”

“I guess so,” Adam said, obviously unsure what to do with me.

I heard the neighbor across the hall, our built-in decorum monitor, flutter by the door. A smile pulled at my lips, but I was too weary to do more than twitch the muscles in my face.

All this crying is exhausting. “If I could just lie down for a minute…” I sagged into the inviting softness of the couch. The leather felt cool and buttery against my fiery cheeks.

Pepto curled into my body as I put my head on a pillow. His thick body was solid and warm against me, and his purr rumbled softly in my ear. The last thing I felt was his tongue licking the inside of the arm I’d thrown around him.

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